Yes but Why?

Yes but why bother? goes one argument we get a lot of. What’s the point? You’re never going to convince anyone. Religion is never going to go away. So why all this disagreement? Anthony Flew calls this the ‘But-those-people-will-never-agree Diversion.’ (How to Think Straight p. 61)

If one is trying to thrash out some generally acceptable working compromise on how things are to be run, then one must consider the various sticking points of all concerned. But if instead you are inquiring into what is in fact the case and why, then that someone refuses to accept that this or that is true is neither here nor there.

Just so. And that is the question we’re looking at: the question of whether the truth claims of religion are true or not, not whether they are influential or of long standing or popular or passionately clung to or not. So if the question really is Why bother to ask whether the truth claims of religion are true or not, the answer is that there are a great many reasons, the first of which is that the epistemic standing of truth claims is the basic subject of B&W. We are concerned with truth in general, and religion is a large category within that inquiry.

Further reasons are 1) Because religion has protected status. It is hedged about with taboos, which function to inhibit precisely this kind of inquiry. If there is no very good reason for this protected status (as I’m arguing), then that status ought to be done away with. One way to do that is to do what we’re doing. Obviously. Taboos work because people observe them, and cease to work when people don’t; they work via conformity and groupthink and social pressure. The more people inquire into religion, the more acceptable it will be to do so. 2) Because there are a lot of debates about secularism around, and this is one of them. 3) Because the immunity or protected status of religion rests on bad thinking, and bad thinking doesn’t stay isolated and quarantined, it leaks out into the wider world. 4) Because religion thinks it has the right and good grounds to rebuke and reproach non-religion, so it needs to be countered. 5) Because religion is all about wishful thinking and we are opposed to wishful thinking. Looking at the operation of wishful thinking in religion is a way to look at it in general. 6) Because religion is very powerful and influential. 7) Because religion interferes in education, public issues, morality, politics. 8) Because there is a widespread misconception that religion and morality are the same or inextricably linked and that religious views on morality are valuable, are somehow better warranted than secular ideas. It is difficult to challenge that idea (and we do want to challenge it) without challenging religion.

Those are some of the reasons. There are more, but that’s enough to be going on with.

Richard B. Hoppe writes “From their perspective, atheism is a deadly threat, and evolution is a door through which that threat can enter to corrupt one’s child. No amount of scientific research, no citations of scientific studies, no detailed criticism of the Wellsian trash science offered in “teach the controversy” proposals, speaks to those fears. If one genuinely fears that learning evolution will corrupt one’s children and damn them for eternity, scientific reasoning is wholly irrelevant.”

He argues that ignoring this fear will undermine political efforts to combat their initiatives. This has no bearing on the truth claims you are writing about but, as a practical matter, it is good to understand the quality of the resistance that we face.

“5) Because religion is all about wishful thinking and we are opposed to wishful thinking.”

Here’s one place where the religion v. secularism debate can jump the tracks. I presume you mean that religion is about wishful thinking because religious people claim that there is an objective reality, i.e. God, on the basis of their wanting to such a thing to exist; rather than upon objective evidence that such a thing exists. But I won’t take that up right now, thank you.

Of course most religious people would disagree with you at this point. However, many of them would agree with the latter half of your statement. All of the great religions see religion as an antidote to wishful thinking. Religion tells its adherents all sorts of unpleasant things about themselves that they would prefer not to hear. To advance spiritually requires one to engage in honest self criticism.

I can agree with the first half of your statement to the extent that I think much religion is based on magical thinking, wish fullfillment fantasies, compensation, etc. But science can be used the same way. E.g. Nazi science. Yes, science has built in controls that (given the unscientific assumption that people are honest and seek the truth) that prevent such abuses from spreading. But religion has its own controls as well. They aren’t explicitly methodological or analytical, but a religious person will tell you that you know one when you’ve hit one.

I don’t think I’m going to convince anyone here to join the Episcopal church and bring something to our bake sale. However it’s important to keep in mind that statements such as the one that I quoted at the beginning of my post can to a religious person seem so wrong headed as to be deliberately provocative. (N.B.! I am not saying it IS deliberately provocative! I’m trying to contribute to a mutual understanding.) For it’s denying one of the basic truths to which religious believers assent; viz. that there is a good to which we are accountable, before which we must submit our selfishness, egotism, wishful thinking, etc.

I recognize that we’re talking about two different sorts of wishful thinking, but unless you make these explicit, people can get het up about it.

Yes – well I certainly understand that religious people are afraid. That fear is basically what I’m referring to when I talk about the taboo, the inhibitions, the felt need on the part of atheists to be polite and sensitive etc. But I don’t really see what can be done about it. People have cherished beliefs that they’re afraid of losing, but…but nothing really seems to follow from that. Nothing acceptable at least.

Fair point. I do have in mind the central claim, the one about the benevolent deity. The benevolent part I think is especially wishful, given the realities.

I know, about the provocation, but on the other hand, so much discussion of religion is so mealy-mouthed, so timid, so anxious to tiptoe around the central problems – I tend to think a little bluntness is necessary as a counter-weight.

“Religion tells its adherents all sorts of unpleasant things about themselves that they would prefer not to hear. To advance spiritually requires one to engage in honest self criticism.”

Whilst I think -all- religion is engaged in wishful thinking I do think there is a case to be made that movements like evangelical christianity, particularly in the US but also elsewhere, are actually engaged in pandering to the most selfish instincts of its followers.

Unlike the more humane aspects of christian thought I have been exposed to (liberal catholicism and low church of england) it seems to me that the evangelicals take great delight in the thought that they, the believers, are the chosen few, by accepting ‘Jesus died for…(yadda yadda)’ they get a ‘get out of hell free’ card and also can carry on making loads of money and caring little for their fellow man. In fact I have had it put to me in the form of Pascal’s wager, surely the lowest motivation for religious belief of all.

“I can agree with the first half of your statement to the extent that I think much religion is based on magical thinking, wish fullfillment fantasies, compensation, etc. But science can be used the same way. E.g. Nazi science.”

There is no such thing as Nazi science. Science is totally value free. One of the fruits of science may be technology which itself may be used for good or ill. However, the fruits of science and how they are used say nothing whatever about science. In short, to try and attack science, it is no use attacking technology as they are orthoganal concepts.

I don’t know a lot about this left behind’s rapture stuff. But from what I gather it would be good for humanity if all the rapture non-sense was true. Imagine all evangelicals disappeared –how peacefull is that.

Trouble is, apparently a lot of them are pilots, and of course a lot drive cars. You can imagine the gory results when they suddenly vanish. The Left Behind authors apparently really revel in that stuff. Nothing like a little sadism dressed up as religion.